--- In [email protected], "Robert Gimbel"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
> I'm not sure what celibacy has to do with being a teacher; is this
> a Catholic thing? or something?

There's a very long tradition, possibly based on
experience, that when sexual energy is sublimated,
it facilitates the process of enlightenment.

In some cases this allegedly purely practical value
of celibacy in *gaining* enlightenment gets intertwined
with the notion that celibacy demonstrates perfect
nonattachment to desires, i.e., that it is a
characteristic of one who has *achieved* enlightenment.

And this can result in two corollary notions: (a)
deliberately frustrating sexual desire (as opposed
to sublimating it) leads to nonattachment, and (b)
the teacher who is not celibate must not be enlightened,
and therefore is not qualified to teach.

Add to this mix the cultural value of "virtue," i.e.,
that sex for anything but procreation is inherently
evil, and you end up with quite a judgmental mess.







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